US Politics Thread 2016-2020

[vienna]

The investigation was never intended to be confined to a single aspect or alleged crime and, in fact, under long standing Federal Law, can be extraordinarily broad in scope if the Special Counsel finds evidence of other possible crimes; the fact is the Bill Clinton Special Prosecutor probe started off as an investigation into the Whitewater dealings, and, finding no joy there, Ken Starr went off to other threads until he came up with the stained blue dress and Clinton's denials; this is no different than that situation, nor any different than any of the other Special Prosecutor/Counsel investigations in that none of them are restricted as to scope. If you want to see an actual description, under Federal Law, of the duties and responsibilities of a Special Counsel, it is here in this link...

It has been amusing watching and listening to the Far Right and other Trump supporters and minions flail about wildly in there effort to salvage their guy's sinking ship, even as he drills holes in the hull, himself. The "secret society" debacle was particularly laughable; maybe they can compensate by shooting up an empty pizza joint again. Although their efforts thus far have yielded no appreciable results, other than embarrassing Sen Ron Johnson, there is an interesting possibility of the GOP thwarting the prosecution of some of those who may be indicted or tried; this is something that could be called the "Ollie North Effect". A great many people believe Ollie North was actually pardoned by President GHW Bush, along with a number of other Iran-Contra figures; the actual truth is North was never given a Presidential pardon and had his case dismissed for retrial because the DOJ lost leverage against North and witnesses in their case when Bush issued the pardons of the other conspirators. North had been tried on charges and was found guilty at trial of the charges against him; however, on appeal, a judge determined some of the evidence against North was compromised by public airing of some details in open hearings held by the House and Senate in their probe of the Iran-Contra scandal. If the pardons had not been issued, the testimony and the remaining 'untainted' evidence would have most very likely resulted in a re-conviction of North. There is a possible danger of likewise tainting evidence and testimony in the current Russia investigations in the same way as in the North case. If you noticed, several of the witnesses called in the Congressional Hearings have asked to give their testimony in closed sessions rather than in public; part of this is due to sensitive intelligence concerns, but part of it also appears to be an effort to avoid possible tainting of possible evidence in the event of trials. The effort seems to be supported by most members, from both parties, of Congressional committees. The glaring exception has been the actions and activities of GOP House member and Chair of the House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes. He has already been under fire for his overt actions to give classified information gleaned in closed door hearings to the Trump administration and for his continuing efforts to derail the House investigations. He has just in recent days been the target of another call for an investigation of the ethics of his recent actions by a nonpartisan Congressional watchdog group. Part of this new call has been over a "Secret Memo" Nunes and his staff have manufactured alleging misconduct by the DOJ/FBI and has been shown to other House members under pledge of confidentiality (some of the memo's source material is actual, highly classified intel), but Nunes has refused to allow the Senate, the Justice Department, the White House or the public to see the contents of the memo. Some of the House GOP members who have read the "memo" have made claims it contains 'bombshell' revelations of misconduct, yet most of those GOP House members also admit they have not read any of the underlying intel sources cited in the memo in order to verify the context or veracity of the "memo"'s claims, in effect having them make ill-informed or uninformed judgements on the "memo". Beyond the fact Nunes has displayed a reckless disregard for the rule of law and the need to preserve and protect the integrity of ongoing investigations, and that pretty much anything Nunes says should be taken with great skepticism, Nunes does pose a threat of having the same effect of 'nullifying' testimony and/or evidence in much the same manner as occurred with the "North Effect". The other members of both the Senate and the House committees investigating the Russia matter have shown great responsibility in making every effort to ensure they do not hinder, tamper with, or 'nullify' their, or any other, legitimate scrutiny of the issues, individuals, motives, or wrongdoings involved. Nunes has already been suspended from his Chairmanship once and has been rebuked by GOP House leadership for his actions; it may be time to take him out of the process again...


Battle over secret Nunes memo could come to a head next week --

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/poli...196966409.html


In the end, Nunes' "Secret Memo" will most likely meet the same fate as the "Secret Society". What is not so secret is the absurd lengths to which the Trump minions will go to try and salvage a sinking scow...









<O>

[August]

Seems our president knocked one out of the park last night.
http://www.businessinsider.com/polls...h-loved-2018-1

Meanwhile the Democrats managed to make themselves look like petty children. https://pjmedia.com/trending/5-times...ion-but-didnt/

That long prayed for Blue Wave is looking less wave-like.

[Rockstar]

USA! USA! USA!

Gutiérrez has left the building!

how fekking petty and childish, still though good for a laugh

bwhahahahaha

Was Kennedy drooling?

Anyone watch whats her faces response on BET?

You cant get this anywhere else man this is quality comedy/

Oh ya almost forgot: WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Republican memo alleging anti-Trump bias at the FBI and U.S. Justice department is likely to be released on Thursday, an official of President Donald Trumps administration said on Wednesday.
The FBI said earlier on Wednesday it had "grave concerns" about the accuracy of the top-secret House Intelligence Committee memo, challenging President Donald Trump's pledge to release it.

Grave concerns, really? If there's nothing to hide why worry right?

[Rockstar]

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

Grave concerns, really? If there's nothing to hide why worry right?

Answered by your own quote:

Oh ya almost forgot: WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Republican memo alleging anti-Trump bias at the FBI and U.S. Justice department is likely to be released on Thursday, an official of President Donald Trumps administration said on Wednesday.
The FBI said earlier on Wednesday it had "grave concerns" about the accuracy of the top-secret House Intelligence Committee memo, challenging President Donald Trump's pledge to release it.

Republicans also blocked IC democrats from releasing their counter-memo.
If there's nothing to hide...

[Catfish]

You can screw up all, as long as you have your rhetorics right. I, me, what I did, lol. Nothing of what he boasted about has been done or created by him or his new laws, it was all done by his predecessor(s). He uses buzzwords and rhetorics and lies, and all applaud.

Good link: https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...response-to-it

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...pplaud-himself

"No matter that Trump presented an economic agenda that, if actually implemented, would probably bankrupt the country – hello big government! No matter that Trump connected legal immigrants to MS-13 gangsters and called for an overthrow of the age-old immigration system. No matter even that Trump called upon Congress “to empower every cabinet secretary with the authority to reward good workers – and to remove federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people” – hello Big Brother!

On Tuesday evening, Trump finally became the president of the whole Republican party. It shows how far the normalization of radical right ideas has come."


Democrats.. “The longer they talk about identity politics, I got ’em. I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats.” (Bannon)


Cutting taxes for industry is ok, but as we all know wealth does not trickle down, and nothing will improve for the common worker.
And where will all the money to finance national guards, veteran pensions, military etc. come from, now?
But since the EPA will be shut down, and natural reservations being reduced to 20 percent of their former area, at least there's less money needed for environmental protection.

[August]

Originally Posted by Dowly

Republicans also blocked IC democrats from releasing their counter-memo.
If there's nothing to hide...

You mean the counter memo that has been released to the full house for their review? Do you mean the counter memo written by Democrats who fought tooth and nail to prevent the rest of congress from even seeing the one it attempts to counter? As far as I know neither this "Chewbacca" counter memo or the original has been released to the public yet.


Like you said if there is nothing to hide...

[Mr Quatro]

Originally Posted by August

You mean the counter memo that has been released to the full house for their review? Do you mean the counter memo written by Democrats who fought tooth and nail to prevent the rest of congress from even seeing the one it attempts to counter? As far as I know neither this "Chewbacca" counter memo or the original has been released to the public yet.


Like you said if there is nothing to hide...

The fact remains that the revelation of this memo will embarrass the Federal Bureau of Investigation and divide our country and the administration even more. The point in time that is waiting for us all is the admission of guilt or the act of asking for forgiveness from the parties that be

[August]

Originally Posted by Mr Quatro

The fact remains that the revelation of this memo will embarrass the Federal Bureau of Investigation and divide our country and the administration even more. The point in time that is waiting for us all is the admission of guilt or the act of asking for forgiveness from the parties that be

I say that if the FBI wants to play king maker then they need to be embarrassed and embarrassed in a very big way, preferably with prison terms for some of the main players and maybe further regulations to prevent or at least inhibit that type of behavior in the future.

As for dividing the country well that is what the Democrats have been doing ever since they lost the election with their calls for "resistance". Trump has tried to reach out to them on a few occasions already the latest being at the SOTU by offering to extend DACA to 1.8 million illegals instead of just the 850k so called "dreamers" and with a real path to citizenship to boot but so far the Dems aren't willing to negotiate at all.

[Platapus]

Trump has a very good team of speech writers and evidently he is capable of reading what others tell him to say.

We will have to see if his actions match his speech writers.

[August]

Very interesting article on the House Intelligence Committees memo:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...ad-its-release

Since before the Republican-led committee voted (along partisan lines) to seek the memo’s declassification and publication, the FBI has been complaining that it was not permitted to review the memo. As I explained last week, this was a very unpersuasive complaint. Having stonewalled the committee’s information requests for several months, the Bureau and Justice Department are hardly well positioned to complain about being denied access; the committee, by contrast, has every reason to believe they would have slow-walked any review in order to delay matters further.

All that aside, the FBI was guaranteed access to the memo before its publication because of the rules of the process. Once the committee voted to disclose, that gave the president five days to object. During that five days, Trump’s own appointees at the FBI and DOJ would have the chance to pore over the memo and make their objections and policy arguments to their principal, the president, and to the rest of the Trump national-security team. This tells us the real objection was not that they were barred from reviewing the memo; it is that they were barred from reviewing it on a schedule that would make it more difficult to derail publication.

[vienna]

The above is an op-ed piece, not a totally accurate depiction of facts, and there is a difference between fact and opinion. The fact is, from the beginning of Nunes' little ploy, the FBI and other interested intelligence agencies, have not argued against the release of the memo on grounds it would prove to be an embarrassment or that it would "prove" agency malfeasance, rather the objection has been due to Nunes unilaterally making use of highly classified intel and data; the use of this data, other than the obvious fact it is classified for reasons and should not be disseminated recklessly, poses a danger of revealing not only the conduct of on-going investigations, but, also, data with the potential of endangering the proper process of those investigations. Nunes, and his staff, have assembled a sort of FrankenMemo, stitching together cherry-picked snippets of other documents and reports which, again, are highly classified for reason, and are now presenting this patchwork document as some sort of cogent, well-structured document. The underlying classified documents are privy to only a few members of Congress, in either house; in fact, many of the GOP House members, other than on the Intel Committee, who have most vocally touted the "value" of the memo have very little to no knowledge of the actual content, context, or provenance on those underlying 'support' documents: they are making statements of "fact" on data of which they have no knowledge of or understanding. The fact Nunes and his GOP cohorts have absolutely refused to share the memo's contents either with DEM congressional members or any of the intelligence agencies involved is a very high indicator of how little confidence they have in the document. An argument could be made Nunes, et al, are trying to protect the integrity of sensitive intel, but that flies in the face of the fact Nunes is not adverse to openly trying to use sensitive intel to advance his, and other's, particular agenda; you can't say you're trying to protect secrets if you are openly using those same secrets. It should also be noted members of Congress from both houses, and both parties, who are actually familiar with the nature and/or content of the underlying documents have been openly critical of the reckless release of such information...

Of note is the claim the copy of the memo sent to Trump for review is not identical to the memo reviewed and voted on by the House Intelligence Committee; why is that?. Why did Nunes send an altered version of the previously voted on memo to Trump without clearing the emendations with fellow committee members, including fellow members of his own GOP? What is Nunes trying to hide and why is he doing so in such a furtive manner? There is more than a little stench to Nunes' manipulations...

That the memo does contain highly classified and sensitive information not intended for general view is attested to by the fact there are any redactions, redactions apparently agreed to not only by The FBI, et al, but also by the White House; if there was any real information revealing malfeasance, do you really think Trump would hesitate to shout such from the rooftops?...

Then there is the fact the HIC GOP members have blocked any effort by the DEM members to issue a memo of their own addressing any omissions of fact, correcting any vague references, or rebutting any claims made in the Nunes FrankenMemo. Why is the GOP so frightened of open discourse on a matter which they, themselves, have initiated and seem determined to pursue? Why are they so obviously apprehensive about any discussion or review of this document? Again, what are they so desperate to hide?...

I have heard reports Trump, in his petty feud with the FBI, is toying with the idea of releasing the memo without the security redactions; I thought he is adamantly opposed to leaks, particularly those affecting national security; if the reports turn out to be true, what does that say about someone who would sacrifice the security of the nation to save his political heinie?...

First, there was the whole FBI "secret society" 'scandal' the GOP tried to foist on the public as a means of distracting from the Russia investigations; that fell apart once the actual, full texts of the emails in question were made public, another case of actual facts trumping the "facts' of the Trump minions. Now, there is another GOP-manufactured "fact" made up of out of context "data" selectively gathered which they are fearful of having held to scrutiny of any kind. I somehow have the sense Nunes' folly will be in the dust bin along with those "secret society" emails. The problem for the GOP is they have once again bought in to the snake oil of the Trump minions and have set themselves up for another embarrassment...

Nunes is a loose cannon who really never should have been made Chairman of the Intelligence Committee by the GOP: he has no prior actual experience in high level intelligence matters, does not even possess a law, government or poli-sci degree (he holds a Masters Degree in Agriculture), and has been criticized before for his inept handling of committee matters; how he ever got the necessary high-level security clearances to view classified material is a really good question, particularly since he doesn't even seem to have a common sense grasp of the sensitive nature of the committee's function or purpose. I have, in a previous post, expressed concern for the placing of persons, of either party, in positions affecting national security without the necessary abilities to perform adequately and/or safely and Nunes is a case in point...

BTW, I'm going to venture a guess the Nunes Memo will be released at the close of business on Friday, as so many other potential embarrassments or humiliations are handled...










<O>

[Rockstar]

"The above is an op-ed piece, not a totally accurate depiction of facts, and there is a difference between fact and opinion."

Then begin by telling us that you have the facts? You now know what's highly classified and what's not?

Aren't you just as interested in getting to the bottom of possible police corruption in the FBI as you are in possibility of foreign nations corrupting our political process? Or is it just get Trump?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-lef...ril-1517530358

The Democrats in the chamber were slumped, glowery. They had chosen to act out unbroken disdain so as to please the rising left of their party, which was watching and would review their faces. Some of them were poorly lit and seemed not resolute but Draculaic. The women of the party mostly dressed in black, because nothing says moral seriousness like coordinating your outfits.
Here it should be said of the rising left of the Democratic Party that they are numerous, committed, and have all the energy—it’s true. But they operate at a disadvantage they cannot see, and it is that they are loveless. The social justice warriors, the advancers of identity politics and gender politics, the young who’ve just discovered socialism—they run on rage.

[August]

[Rockstar]

http://thehill.com/opinion/white-hou...e-defenders-of

.... Confused now? Well, don’t be.

When Democrats do it, it’s “courageous.” When Republicans do it, well, it’s “treasonous.”

Inexcusable actions by senior level officials at the FBI and DOJ deserve public scrutiny. The potential politicization of independent law enforcement entities is a damn serious allegation.

Delay the release of the GOP memo until it can be timed for a simultaneous release with the Democratic counter-memo. Make certain both are stringently scrubbed and appropriately redacted in order to ensure the safety of sources and protection of sensitive techniques and methods.
And then stop disingenuously pretending that the Democrats are the defenders of the FBI.

Doubt what I’m saying? Just ask our colleagues at the CIA."